In Bangladesh, a struggle for accountability

NEW YORK TIMES

June 29, 2013

DHAKA, Bangladesh - Inside Courtroom 21, the two judges peered down from high wooden chairs as lawyers in formal black robes presented their motions. Activists and victims watched from the back. And a few steps away, a portly man with a thick black beard remained silent. He was the suspect. He did not seem especially nervous.

Perhaps that is because the man, Delowar Hossain, has not yet been charged with anything - and may never be. He has been a vilified figure since his garment factory, Tazreen Fashions, caught fire in November, killing 112 workers who were making clothes for retailers like Wal-Mart and Sears. A high-level government investigation found fire safety violations and accused Hossain of "unpardonable negligence."

"How do you sleep at night?" a woman screamed as Hossain left the courtroom after the hearing on June 19.

A key test case

The more pertinent question might be this: In Bangladesh, where the garment industry powers the economy and wields enormous political clout, is it possible to hold factory owners like Hossain accountable?

Now is undeniably the test. The Tazreen Fashions fire was followed by the April collapse of the Rana Plaza factory building, in which 1,129 people were killed in the deadliest disaster in the history of the garment industry.

A global supply chain that delivers low-cost clothes from Bangladeshi factories to stores in the West was suddenly redefined by images of mutilated bodies pulled from the rubble. The Obama administration responded last week by rescinding a special trade privilege for Bangladesh over concerns about safety problems and labor rights violations in its garment industry.

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But Bangladeshi factories have always suffered fires and accidents, usually without attracting international attention. Not once was a factory owner charged with any crime, activists say.

"We want to set a legal precedent that factory owners can't get away with this," said Saydia Gulrukh, an anthropologist and social activist.

One way to interpret the hearing for Hossain was as an act of exasperation. It was not a criminal trial. Instead, Gulrukh and a handful of other activists and lawyers had become so frustrated that they petitioned the Bangladesh High Court to overstep the stalled police investigation and decide whether criminal charges should be filed.

The proceeding is already bogged down and could take months, or longer.

"They are just delaying the process," said Jyotirmoy Barua, the lawyer handling the petition, speaking of Hossain's defense team. "They think we will lose the spirit of fighting, but they have miscalculated."

Political, outdated

Bangladesh's legal system has rarely favored anyone confronting the power structure. Much of the legal code has remained intact since the British imperial era, when laws were devised to control the population and protect the colonialist power structure. Legal reformers continue to push to modernize the criminal code, but the pace of change has been slow. Moreover, the police and other security forces are deeply politicized, with a bloody legacy of carrying out extrajudicial killings.

Many garment factory owners are now entrenched in the nation's power elite, some as members of Parliament.

Now, the lawyers trying to bring charges against Hossain are facing their own obstacles. First, they sought a copy of the government investigation that had blamed him for negligence. Although reporters were briefed on the main findings in December, the investigation report was never publicly released. But at one hearing, government lawyers said the Home Ministry had not yet provided them with a copy.

On June 19, the two-judge panel seemed annoyed when the government lawyers again failed to properly file the report with the court. (They did so later in the day.) When one of the judges, Quazi Reza-ul Hoque, expressed interest in broadening the case, the main defense lawyer stepped to the lectern, agreeing that the failings of the government should be explored, but also adding a reminder about the industry.

"This is a very important economic factor in our country," said the lawyer, Fida Kamal. When he raised the same point a few moments later, one of the judges agreed.